On the Origin of Species: The Illustrated Edition - Hardcover

Darwin, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1402756399 ISBN 13: 9781402756399

Publisher: Union Square & Co., 2008

Synopsis

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In his landmark study, Darwin theorized that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. These ideas flew in the face of long-held beliefs, and the book immediately became one of the most controversial scientific works in history and it still remains so today. Now, for the first time, Darwin’s classic is fully and handsomely illustrated with more than 350 illustrations and photos, many of them in brilliant color. Reproductions from Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle, his journal of the travels that led to his remarkable breakthrough, appear throughout, inviting readers to experience Darwin’s journey and to understand how he developed his theory of evolution. In addition, brief excerpts from his letters, diaries, and correspondence bring both Darwin the man and his
revolutionary discovery to life. A Main Selection of Scientific America.

About this title

Review:

It's hard to talk about The Origin of Species without making statements that seem overwrought and fulsome. But it's true: this is indeed one of the most important and influential books ever written, and it is one of the very few groundbreaking works of science that is truly readable.

To a certain extent it suffers from the Hamlet problem--it's full of clichés! Or what are now clichés, but which Darwin was the first to pen. Natural selection, variation, the struggle for existence, survival of the fittest: it's all in here.

Darwin's friend and "bulldog" T.H. Huxley said upon reading the Origin, "How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of that." Alfred Russel Wallace had thought of the same theory of evolution Darwin did, but it was Darwin who gathered the mass of supporting evidence--on domestic animals and plants, on variability, on sexual selection, on dispersal--that swept most scientists before it. It's hardly necessary to mention that the book is still controversial: Darwin's remark in his conclusion that "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history" is surely the pinnacle of British understatement. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Book Description:

Jim Endersby's major new scholarly edition debunks some of the myths that surround Darwin's book, and expores how it was originally written, published and read. Endersby provides a new, up-to-date and very readable introduction to this classic text and a level of scholarly apparatus unmatched by any other edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Union Square & Co.
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1402756399
• ISBN 13: 9781402756399
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 544
• Editor: Quammen David